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Democrats and Republicans Feud Over Donor Data

By Michael Luo October 25, 2008 11:01 amOctober 25, 2008 11:01 am

Democratic officials are planning to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Monday against Senator John McCain’s campaign, slapping back at Republicans who have infuriated the Obama campaign by questioning its vetting of donors.

The charges and counter-charges in the murky world of campaign finance regulations have become increasingly shrill, making them difficult to sort through, which is perhaps part of the point in the closing weeks of the campaign.

The complaint by the Democratic National Committee will highlight a laundry list of issues, including a report that Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations received in the mail a solicitation for a $5,000 donation for Mr. McCain’s joint fund-raising committee with the Republican National Committee.

The McCain campaign said the incident occurred accidentally because a mail vendor had rented a list from Foreign Affairs Magazine.

Mostly, however, the Democrats are seeking to hang around Mr. McCain the same taint about the legitimacy of his donations that Republicans have sought to convey with Mr. Obama in an F.E.C. complaint of their own earlier this month. Seeking to make their accusations more combustible, Democrats are arguing that Mr. McCain, who helped push through sweeping campaign reforms several years ago, is skirting the very laws he helped write.

“The McCain campaign’s lack of disclosure and disregard for the law he helped write raises serious questions about John McCain’s commitment to the openness and transparency the voters expect from their leaders,” said Joe Sandler, general counsel for the D.N.C., in a statement. “In view of the McCain campaign’s clear history of violating campaign finance laws, it is imperative that the Commission promptly conduct a thorough investigation of these violations; and a full audit of all of the McCain Campaign’s contributions.”

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, called the complaint a “sad publicity stunt to divert attention from the recent controversies surrounding Barack Obama’s shady fund-raising practices.”

He added: “It’s ironic that the D.N.C. and Obama campaign would launch a complaint based on information fully disclosed our Web site — which is completely transparent in disclosing 100 percent of our contributions publicly — while the Obama campaign has refused to do likewise.”

The McCain campaign Web site features a searchable database of all of its donors, including those who contribute $200 or less that the F.E.C. does not require campaigns to itemize on reports, which has earned plaudits from campaign finance watchdogs.

Much of the D.N.C.’s complaint is based on what they said was an analysis of the information in the McCain database. Officials said they had found through the site 6,653 contributions that exceeded the $2,300 limit that Mr. McCain could accept by more than $1,000, including one donor who had given $56,047. That donation, the complaint points out, does not appear in F.E.C. reports. The Democrats also highlighted 23 contributions from donors who listed themselves as anonymous that exceeded $50. F.E.C. rules allow donations below that amount to be anonymous.

McCain officials said their Web site is only periodically updated and does not necessarily reflect recent changes, refunds and re-attributions of excess donations. Campaigns usually have 60 days to address excess contributions, which all campaigns grapple with to some degree. They also said anonymous donations higher than $50 are eventually donated to charity.

The F.E.C. has regularly sent follow-up letters flagging excess contributions to both campaigns. The most recent letter sent in mid-October to the Obama campaign, which has taken in far more contributions than Mr. McCain’s, was 194 pages long. One sent to the McCain campaign in late September, which is highlighted in the D.N.C.’s complaint, was just 12 pages, although an earlier one was 77 pages.

The Republican complaint earlier this month, which they expanded upon this week, was sparked by an article on the conservative Web site, Newsmax.com, that highlighted thousands of dollars in contributions, made in increments of $25 dating back to March, from “Good Will” in Austin, Tex., who listed his employer as “Loving” and his occupation as “You,” as well as thousands in small contributions that started last November from a “Doodad Pro” in Nunda, N.Y., with the same employer and occupation.

A recent New York Times analysis of F.E.C. records, conducted over just a few days, found nearly 3,000 donations to Mr. Obama from more than a dozen people with apparently fictitious donor information. The contributions that had not been charged back by the campaign amounted to more than $40,000, a tiny fraction of what Mr. Obama has raised, but they raised questions about the adequacy of the Obama campaign’s vetting of its unprecedented flood of donors. Similar searches of the McCain campaign’s donors, looking for the same obvious anomalies, turned up scant examples.

The Times analysis also found nearly 200 donations from people identified as “Anonymous, Anonymous,” or in some cases, “Annonymous, Annonymous,” to Mr. Obama. It was unclear whether the donors entered this information when they made their contributions, or if they were assigned those designations by some kind of automated process after leaving the fields blank.

On the other hand, the Obama campaign has pointed out that a search of the McCain campaign’s online database turned up other odd donors that fall below the $200 threshold for itemization in F.E.C. records, including “The Gun Shop” from Hood River, Oregon, who contributed $100, and “Adorable Manabat” from Winnetka, Calf., who gave $200.

The Republicans also sought to impugn contributions Mr. Obama has received from overseas, suggesting that many of them could be illegal donations from foreign nationals. But a separate Times analysis of Mr. Obama’s donations conducted earlier this month found that donations from contributors who entered a state abbreviation other than one corresponding to the 50 states, or a U.S. territory, amounted to a tiny universe. It is unclear how much of that could be illegal, considering it is perfectly legal for expatriates, or, for example, American citizens or green card holders living on military bases overseas, to contribute.

More recently, news accounts have reported examples of people discovering credit card charges they had not made to the Obama campaign. And the Washington Post reported this week the tale of Mary T. Biskup of Manchester, Missouri, who received a call recently from the Obama campaign asking if she had donated $174,800 to the campaign. Ms. Biskup said she had not and told the Post it appeared someone had used her name but not her credit card number, because nothing had showed up on her own bills.

The Obama campaign said it quickly spotted the donations ostensibly made by Ms. Biskup and began looking into it right away, contacting her and then charging back the money to the credit card.

Conservative Web sites have been reporting numerous examples of readers entering obviously fake information on the Obama campaign’s web site and making successful donations and then repeating the same experiment on the McCain campaign’s and being denied.

Erika Franzi, a 36-year-old mother of four from North Carolina, who had followed some of these reports, conducted the experiment herself this week, using the name “Della Ware” and the address, 12345 No Way in Far Far Away, DE” and listing her employer as “Americans Against Obama.”

She contacted the Caucus with the results, e-mailing a screenshot of a bank statement to prove that her $15 donation ahd gone through. When she tried entering the same information on Mr. McCain’s web site, she got error messages.

The main problem, according to Ms. Franzi and many others who have apparently conducted the experiment, seems to be that Mr. Obama’s Web site apparently does not require the donor’s information to match the information on the credit card making the donation, while Mr. McCain’s seems to have stricter standards.

Obama officials have said that much of their vetting occurs after the transaction occurs and that when they discover questionable donations in their sifting, they seek to refund them quickly. Critics, however, have said this practice can amount to something of a short-term loan, valuable in the crush of competition for resources in the waning weeks of a presidential campaign.

The accusations about campaign finance irregularities are particularly potent because both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have sought to carve out images as reformers, expressing concerns about the influence of money in politics.

Never suffers recessionary price slides or such. Clearly why Democrats are in any position of Power able to manipualte, dodge, and distort. and clearly why a former community agitator, naivette Barack Obama is within reach of the WH.

I really doubt that either side is getting a vast, race-changing amount of money from individuals attempting to by-pass the law. This is smokescreen…. However, after the election, the RNC and DNC should get with the FEC to develop a donor solicitation computer platform that helps reduce the misbehavior for the future.

If Obama (and McCain) need help figuring out where to donate the funds that are tainted — they should ask the RNC since they are surely scouting an appropriate place to “donate” Palin’s 150K wardrobe after Nov. 5th!

This is projection from McCain against Obama, claiming his donars are illigitamate while McCain’s are within the guidlines. I’ve seen this over and over with both McCain and Palin, everything they have accused Obama of is deflecting thier own corrupt, maligned dealings in their own political career.

For example; McCain and Palin claimed the donars are largely unknown for Obama, while they have taken campaign money for years from big donors such as Freddie and Fannie, AIG, Oil companies, Drug companies etc.,
Everything they deflect, thus caught lying, and it’s easier than hell to see what crowd they have been involved in. It’s coming out for the ‘opportunists’ of this cycle. They are completely fake with their wishes.
Eg; What stupidity in saying “we want to spread the wealth around’. Firstly, many, in fact all middle and low income taxpayers……….would naturally say YES, finally their thinking of us, they want to help us instead of the Corporate idiots that took so much from the taxpayers of middle and low income. This stupidity of McCain’s shows his elitism, out of touch economics and lack of compassion.

With Palin, she cut back on ‘special’ policies such that would help the citizens of Alaska with ‘special needs’ and disability. Now, she’s V.P. she thinks with her own child a special needs child, she can use this platform for her own political career. Both have NO compassion for anyone, not even their families, dragging them all over the countryside, unschooled, unattended by both parent’s in this race.

One Alaskan woman said “she doesn’t know the issues’, “and doesn’t work hard to know them”. “If women are going to play with the big boys, then motherhood needs to come down off the pedestal”.

She lied about taking on the big boys, she was not in office to do that. A tip to the FBI did that and personally I think it was Randy Rhuedrich, but everyone in Alaska knows she had absolutely nothing to do with this.

Knowone knows also, that Christ of Florida, lived in Alaska for 10 yrs. SURPRISE…. A lot of garbage from McCain camp is all they have done. Take the easy way out by criticizing Obama, while hiding their record. Alaska needs your help to rid Palin 1 and 2 from Alaskan corrupt politics. Please listen to these people in this state, they are fed up.

“The charges and counter-charges in the murky world of campaign finance regulations have become increasingly shrill, making them difficult to sort through”

Only the NY Times is having difficulty sorting through the mess. Let’s see, hundreds of examples of illegal contributions to the Obama campaign, and that’s only in the information that has been made available. Somewhere around 50% of the information has not been made available. The Obama and democratic linked ACORN up to their eyeballs in voter fraud. Obama campaign officials in Ohio asking the elections board to ignore the votes they cast for fear of being prosecuted. Yes, it sure must seem murkey to those wearing the Obama colored glasses.

The MSM is a joke, and it’s sad that those who have been charged with keeping things honest have chosen to look the other way and are complacent in the fraud.

NYT…..we all know who the mudslingers are….. The Obama campaign is not going to take it and have all right to fight back with truth against innuendo, lies and false claims. And therein lies the difference

“For example; McCain and Palin claimed the donars are largely unknown for Obama, while they have taken campaign money for years from big donors such as Freddie and Fannie, AIG, Oil companies, Drug companies etc.,”

It’s really a sad commentary about the ineptness of people like Northcan. For your information Northcan, the Obama campaign has received significantly more contributions from Freddie, Fannie and the oil companies in the few short years he has been in office than McCain has in his entire 30 year career.

Page 1,184 of the Karl Rove Handbook: Take a Democratic strength (vast number of donors, unprecedented online presence) and turn it into a weakness. Sorry, boys …. it’s like trying to revive the Wishbone offense in the 2008 NFL …it may have worked once but folks aren’t gonna get fooled again.

It’s really a sad commentary about the ineptness of people like Northcan. For your information Northcan, the Obama campaign has received significantly more contributions from Freddie, Fannie and the oil companies in the few short years he has been in office than McCain has in his entire 30 year career.

— Tim

Neither candidate has received money from Feddie Mac or Fannie Mae. This is one of the more obnoxious red herrings of this election cycle. Both parties have received large number of private donations from people who work at these companies… personal contributions, all of them.

It’s illegal for an corporation/company to give money to a political campaign.

Of course, if you feel certain individuals should be banned from giving money while others can – I’d like to hear that argument.

“I will run an honorable campaign” to quote John Mc Cain. This never happened! He has run a dishonorable campaign hoping that the mud he slings will stick. First it was on ties to terrorists, then on healthcare, then on war in Iraq and national security, and now on campaign donations. Unfortunately, it only riles the ignorant bigots and racists. Mc Cain is now grabbing at straws and he still has no clear message. He was against Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy – now he wants to make them permanent. His health care plan leaves out thousands of Americans and deregulation is at the core of his plan, just like Wall Street – and on top of that, the cost to your employer for your health benefit would be added to your income. Yet, he keeps saying he will not raise taxes. No, he will raise my income by adding the cost of my health care and then I can pay additional taxes on that benefit. But I will get a tax credit to offset this? This does not compute as beneficial to me!
John Mc Cain touted campaign spending reform and he took $84 million in taxpayer money. That was supposed to match what he had raised. Then he set up little hybrid groups to donate and spend more money than what was allowed by the rules he, himself, supported and worked to have implemented. Does he think Americans are stupid? He promoted the reforms and has found a way around he rules. Shame on John Mc Can.
He is a maverick all right – a maverick who finds the loopholes and skirts the law. He is a maverick who should be called to task by the Federal Election Commission!

The most important number is Obama took 25 million from Wall Street, McCain took 22 million from Wall Street. Then they both supported the bailout to line the pockets of the crooks on Wall Street. Big surprise. While we’re all watching the horse race, the banking industry have taken billions of our money and has now decided NOT TO LOAN IT OUT. They’re hoarding it. A CitiBank executive said in a closed door meeting that was overheard by an NYT reporter that they are planning to use it to merge with other banks. And they’re planning to sit on it in case they need it if things get worse. That’s not going to help anything.

The reason we gave them the money is so they will start loaning again to start the economy moving. Don’t believe me, I’m just a blogger. This is Senator Chris Dodd the chair of the oversight committee speaking to an NYT business section reporter today on Capitol Hill, “If it turns out that they are hoarding, you’ll have a revolution on your hands. People will be so livid and furious that their tax money is going to line their pockets instead of doing the right thing. There will be hell to pay.”

Sounds like the taxpayers got taken. We should have done what Nader said and jailed them, fined them, and made them pay for their own bailout with a one tenth of one percent tax on every transaction on Wall Street — similar to how we pay sales tax. But a lot smaller percentage. For a little fairness. The crooks are getting away with this. And they’re giving dividends out to themselves at the same time. What a deal we got? We have to take back our government from the corporate criminals who own and control the congress, the two presidential candidates, and the media.

GOOD! Because we have a lot to do. You! (the American people) are going to have to take back control of your elected government at every level, and set your government back on the right path of service to you, and the greater good of the World.

Barack Obama and the democrats are your best hope of doing that now. Tell your family, friends, and everyone you know to support them as best they can. Because the Bush McCain vote fraud, vote cheating, vote buying, vote manipulation machine is already hard at work to cheat you again. And we all know what a disaster that has been the past 8 years of Bush McCain.

Barack Obama and the democrats will need all the power you can give them at every level of government (Federal, State, County, and local City elected governments). Obama and the democrats will have an enormous mess to fix for the American people, and the rest of the World. A mess caused by the corrupt Bush McCain administration.

You see, starting back in 2000, and before 911, it was mostly the Republican governors, Republican legislatures, and county elected Republican officials that conspired with the corrupt Bush McCain administration to raise college, and university tuitions by the fastest, and highest rate increases in American history. Some state tuitions went up by as much as a WHOPPING! 30% in one year.

The reason the Bush McCain administration did this was to force struggling working class kids into the military to pay for the sudden jump in tuition. Which was forced on them by the corrupt Bush McCain administration, and their corrupt Republican Governors, and republican controlled state legislatures.

See, Bush McCain had plans to get us into all these immoral, foolish, criminal, and unnecessary wars from the start. So they could use these wars to seize power, and later to get reelected. But, for their evil plan to work they needed more volunteer soldiers struggling to pay for an education whose blood they could spill to help them seize more power. Remember Bush McCain’s “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!” theatrics.

The exploitation, and lost lives of these finest Americans is despicable, disgusting, immoral, corrupt and criminal. And it makes me SICK, and ANGRY!

You will have to vote for Obama, and the democrats in overwhelming numbers to overcome the Bush McCain vote fraud machine. Vote early if you can. Then help your fellow Americans cast their votes now, and on through election day. Vote for Obama, and the democrats like your life, and the lives of your loved ones depends on it. Because it does. You will not survive 4 more years of “Let Them Eat Cake” Bush McCain, and their republican allies.

Just look at the mess we have now.

You can fix this mess with your votes for Obama, and the democrats. And REMEMBER, no matter which of us may stumble or fall, the rest of you must continue to surge forward for Barack Obama, and the democrats, and for your-selves most of all. The children, and the World are counting on us.

Today I read about the vile email sent out by Penn. Republicans. Of all the many despicable and hateful things that McCain and the Republicans have done in the last year, this is THE WORST and most Obscene tactic I have ever witnessed in 40 years of watching politics closely (since I was 16).

I say sort the money out! Obama’s pulled in TEN times McC’s contributions. Send back or donate the murky contributions….no problem. It’s either Republicans trying to finance a phony “issue” OR people that just want to crush McPain but do so anonymously.

No worries. I’m on my way to the Obama “shop” down the street to make some calls to FL and OH to get the vote out early AND get this disastrous McShame duo defeated!!

doesn’t matter. Completely irrelevant. I have decided that since Republicans for years have argued that political money amounts to “free speech” and since THEIR Supreme Court appointments have upheld this dubious idea they no longer have any right ot bith about fundraising. Why no stories about how the Republicans have outspent dems in elections for decades. The public financing system is a joke. If the RNC can out raise the DNC by orders of magnitude by taking huge donations from companies the system is useless.

BUT NO WORRY BECAUSE I HAVE A SOLUTION!!! No more limits on total donations. SInce the 14th ammendment has turned corporations into persons they should have to be held to the same standard:

Therefore, again, no more limits on total fund raising BUT a strict $2,000 dollar limit in contributinos from persons and companies. Every donation must be fully transparent. NO MORE BUNDLING. No one can raise, give, or carry more than 2,000 dollars to a campaign or comittee. SAme applies to PACS or any group that chooses to run ads on issues or on candidates.
2,000 dolars max. Total transparecy with everyone using the same donor software. COMPLETE annonymity about the DONOR OCCUPATION. Therefore no campaign knows how many Exxon or Union employees donated.
Hence for Exxon is forbiden giving huge amounts. No one can bundle huge amounts.
Listenening to poiticians complain about fundraising is just silly. ANy intellectually honest person knows that both parties and campaigns do everything possible to raise as much as possible.
Only small donors, we know who they are but not what they are.

I agree that we need to take back the government from the 2 party system (at least removing any political party from the actual running of the government.) Since when did our government become a 3 branch system divided between 2 parties? Shouldn’t each elected official have the fortitude to do their job in conjunction with others without the fear of the ‘party whips’?

However, not sure I buy your argument that our leaders are hoarding this money. It’s money that has been given permission to spend (in form of debt) but unless the money is actually used, that money doesn’t really exist – like the remaining debt of a credit card… nothing to hoard.

Also, this kind of solution takes time to plan, especially if we want these funds to be used effectively. One benefit of the money being allocated without being spent – if it gives confidence to private investors to go ahead and invest, then they may accomplish much of what is needed without actually drawing on our funds.

Believe it or not, at one point I thought McCain was an honorable man, before his descent into plain craziness and greed, and early on I thought it would be bad news if Hillary won because Bill would be back in the White House.

So I donated to McCain. I just used the donor tool on his web site, and guess what, it does not show my donation. So much for “transparency.”

Its easy to see Obama’s website is not providing the security to make sure bogus donors and out of country donors arent beint accepted, they dont ask for a security code, they dont ask for the expiration date, they dont run a name check of what is on the card versus whos donating.. And they wonder why people are having their credit cards hacked and having donations made to Obama, they wonder why people are saying up to 63 million dollars of the 150 million he took in last month are from foreign sources. This is why McCain agreed to public financaing and why Obama should have honored his word, instead he lied to the people yet again about what he would do.. Will you expect any less once he is in office?? I DONT THINK SO!!

The Obama and democratic linked ACORN up to their eyeballs in voter fraud.

— Tim

“The head of a voter registration group hired by the California Republican Party was arrested over the weekend…Mark Anthony Jacoby, the owner of a signature-gathering firm called Young Political Majors, was taken into custody by Ontario police just after midnight Saturday and booked with a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.”

and

“John McCain’s campaign has directed $175,000 to the firm of a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states. According to campaign finance records, a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the RNC and the the California Republican Party, made a $175,000 payment to the group Lincoln Strategy in June for purposes of “registering voters.” The managing partner of that firm is Nathan Sproul,”

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